The present invention relates generally to chucks for use with drills or with electric or pneumatic power drivers. Both hand and electric or pneumatic tool drivers are well known. Although twist drills are the most common tools used with such drivers, the tools may also comprise screwdrivers, nut drivers, burrs, mounted grinding stones and other cutting or abrading tools. Since the tools may have shanks of varying diameter or the cross-section of the tool shank may be polygonal, the device is usually provided with a chuck which is adjustable over a relatively wide range. The chuck may be attached to the driver by a threaded or tapered bore.
A wide variety of chucks have been developed in the art. In one form of chuck, three jaws spaced circumferentially, approximately 120 degrees apart from each other, are constrained by angularly disposed passageways in a body attached onto the drive shaft and configured so that rotation of the body in one direction relative to a constrained nut engaging the jaws forces the jaws into gripping relationship with respect to the shank of a tool, while rotation in the opposite direction releases the gripping relationship. Such a chuck may be keyless if it is rotated by hand. One example of such a chuck is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,125,673 entitled xe2x80x9cNon-Impact Keyless Chuckxe2x80x9d and U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,473 entitled xe2x80x9cChuckxe2x80x9d, both commonly assigned to the present assignee, and whose entire disclosure is incorporated by reference herein.
While many currently existing chuck designs have been successful, varying configurations are desirable for a variety of applications. Particularly, it would be desirable to have a chuck that could be manufactured with adequate performance for a lower cost than many currently existing chuck designs. For example, typically, the main body of a chuck of the type described in the above-referenced patents is manufactured from metal bar stock. Therefore, the greatest diameter of the chuck body at any point determines the diameter of the bar stock necessary to construct such body. Since bar stock is an expensive component of the chuck, design efforts have been made to minimize the diameter necessary to construct the chuck body which has typically necessitated use of separate thrust washers to receive the axial rearward thrust of the nut as well as separate rear sleeve members attached to the rearward section of the main body in chucks utilizing both front and rear sleeves. In addition, it is necessary to utilize secondary operations to place the oblique jaw passageways in the body and to create the main tool receiving bore. The most common way of forming these passageways and bores is through a drilling operation which necessitates the utilization of primarily round passageways and bores.
The present invention recognizes and addresses the foregoing considerations, and others of prior art constructions and methods.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved chuck.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a chuck that can be manufactured and assembled in a cost effective manner.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a keyless chuck that has a minimum number of individual components that must be assembled.
It is another object of some embodiments of the present invention to provide a chuck that minimizes or eliminates the constraints necessitated by use of bar stock for the main body.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an improved chuck whose main body can be molded.
It is a further object of certain embodiments of the present invention to provide an improved chuck that can be manufactured with a minimum number of operational steps.
These and other objects are achieved by providing a chuck for use with a manual or powered driver having a rotatable drive shaft, the chuck including an integrally molded body member with a nose section and a tail section, the nose section having an axial bore formed therein, and a plurality of angularly disposed passageways formed therethrough and intersecting the axial bore. A plurality of jaws are slidably positioned in the angularly disposed passageways. Each jaw has a jaw face formed on one side and threads formed on an opposite surface. A nut is rotatably mounted on the body member in engagement with the threads on the jaws, and a sleeve member is provided in driving engagement with the nut whereby when the sleeve is rotated with respect to the body, the jaws will be moved thereby.
These and other objects are further accomplished by providing a chuck for use with a hand or powered driver having a rotatable drive shaft, the chuck including an integrally molded body member having a nose section and a tail section. The nose section has an axial bore formed therein and a plurality of angularly disposed passageways formed therethrough and intersecting the axial bore. The nose section has a reinforcing member co-molded therewith about at least a portion of its outer circumference. A plurality of jaws are provided slidably positioned in the angularly disposed passageways, each of the jaws having a tool engaging face formed on one side thereof and threads formed on an opposite outer surface. A nut is provided mounted on the body member in engagement with threads on the jaws, and a sleeve member is provided in driving engagement with the nut whereby when the sleeve is rotated with respect to the body, the jaws will be moved thereby.